Managing Snapshots Using Time Slider

Language:

When Time Slider is enabled, automatic snapshots are deleted as follows:

frequent snapshots are deleted after 1 hour
hourly snapshots are deleted after 1 day
daily snapshots are deleted after 1 week
weekly snapshots are deleted after 1 month
One or more of the oldest snapshots on a file system will be deleted when the file system becomes more than 80% full

You can also delete snapshots manually, if required. For more information, see How to Delete an Existing Snapshot From Time Slider.

You can change the free disk space threshold at which the oldest snapshots will be automatically deleted. For more information, see How to Change the Storage Space Available to Snapshots.

If you do not require snapshots to be taken and stored on every ZFS file system, you can choose which file systems to include or exclude. For more information, see How to Choose a Specific ZFS File System to Snapshot.

For additional protection, every Time Slider snapshot can be automatically copied to an external storage device. For more information, see How to Replicate Snapshots to an External Storage Device.

How to Delete an Existing Snapshot From Time Slider

Open the Time Slider preferences pane by choosing System→Administration→Time Slider.
Open the Delete Snapshots window by clicking the Delete Snapshots button.
In the snapshot list, select any snapshots that you want to delete.
You can filter the list by file system and by the SMF service that took the snapshot: frequent, hourly, daily, weekly or monthly.
Click the Delete button.
Click the Close button.
Note - Snapshots that were not created by Time Slider are also listed in the Delete Snapshots window, and can be deleted by using the same method.

How to Change the Storage Space Available to Snapshots

By default, Time Slider creates new snapshots on a ZFS file system until the file system is 80% full. At that point, Time Slider will automatically delete one or more of its oldest automatic snapshots as necessary to return the file system usage to 80% or less.

You can set this threshold from any value between 70% and 90%. This value applies to all ZFS file systems. Use this procedure to change the threshold value.

Open the Time Slider preferences pane by choosing System→Administration→Time Slider.
Click the Advanced Options expander button.
In the Reduce Backups When Storage Space Usage Exceeds text box, type a value between 70 and 90, or use the spin buttons to increase or decrease the existing value.
Click OK to close the window.

How to Choose a Specific ZFS File System to Snapshot

By default, Time Slider takes snapshots of all the ZFS file systems. Use this procedure to choose a specific set of file systems for the Time Slider service to snapshot.

Open the Time Slider preferences pane by choosing System→Administration→Time Slider.
Click the Advanced Options expander button.
Click the Custom radio button.
In the list of ZFS file systems, select the option next to the file system that you want to snapshot, and deselect the other file system options that you do not want to snapshot.
Click OK to close the window.

How to Replicate Snapshots to an External Storage Device

For additional data protection, Time Slider can duplicate every snapshot it takes to an external storage device. Use this procedure to enable this feature.

Open the Time Slider preferences pane by choosing System→Administration→Time Slider.
Click the Advanced Options expander button.
Select the Replicate backups to an External Drive option.
Choose a directory on an external device by using the file chooser button.
Click OK to close the window.
Note - External devices do not need to be formatted with the ZFS filesystem to use this feature.